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Ubisoft: Watch Dogs "Just Wasn't Ready"

The delay of the hugely anticipated Watch Dogs wasn't well received by gamers.

However, it was hardly an easy decision for Ubisoft. During a recent IGN interview with Ubisoft North America president Laurent Detoc, he said the decision was ultimately "very intense." Said Detoc:

"I think one of the fascinating things about this industry is that you can go from genius to idiot in an extremely short time frame. These are some of those moments, where you’re riding sky high on Watch Dogs or Rayman, and then suddenly you have to break it to the outside world, and sometimes even convince the inside people. Not everybody agrees. You have to say, ‘this is in the best interest of the product, to do this,’ because at the end of the day we’re going to be able to do this extra fine tuning."

Detoc added that the game "just wasn't ready" and that in truth, they really thought it'd be good to go for its November launch as of Gamescom (which was in August). However, he did say the title could've ended up being the "best-rated game on next-gen," saying Ubisoft is "breaking ground" on certain gameplay assets. That still wasn't good enough, though, and he mentioned Grand Theft Auto V as a bar over which they aim to leap.

It is too bad that Watch Dogs missed out on the next-gen launches but hey, we got Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, which is a damn great - and freakin' huge - game in its own right.

I don't think he's leveling with us. They waited until just before they would gone gold; if they were that far away from ready then it should have been obvious earlier. I think they were afraid that it wouldn't do the kinds of numbers that were looking for post-GTA and that it might cannibalize sales from Black Flag. If it doesn't sell massively then it can't become their next big franchise.

Hopefully the delay is an indication that Ubisoft are trying to bolster their 2014 sales due to not having an Assassin's Creed ready to drop. A man can dream, right? Also, it's like Miyamoto says; a delayed game can eventually be made great, while a rushed game is bad forever. Not as applicable these days with the ability to patch over dodgy work, but let's not say that last bit too loudly.

thats why everyone is so pissed at the delay, im sorry but you do not just wake up one morning, the day your suppose to go gold, and say oh sh*t were not ready.that realization, those worries, set in LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG before!people aint pissed it got delayed, if it needs more time to make it what it should, what it could be, fine.but what people have a problem with is when publishers wait till a month before release, so basically the day its suppose to be locked in and sent to the reproduction and printing plants, you wait till that day to put your hand up and say sorry we need more time?sorry, but i dont buy it!FAR too many games are getting delayed just 1 month before release lately.as the saying goes, fool me once, shame on you.fool me twice, shame on me.you can only serve the bullshit so many times before people start to realize.

Gamescom was 3 months from launch. Games usually don't go gold until a month away. Every single day before launch, there are people in the company whose job it is to decide if the game will be ready for release.

Software Development has milestones, obviously the game missed it's final milestone and was delayed because of that. Maybe the higher ups decided that the game could have been ready, but they wanted it to be better. Maybe the huge success of GTAV caused them to rethink their standards on the games quality.

EA and DICE have proven that just because the developers think the game is ready or not doesn't really mean anything in the long run, it is the publishing decisions that matter the most.

The world isn't always as shady as you think it is. Actually I don't even know what you are trying to imply?